The council is leading the investigation, which should be completed next week.

Essex schoolboy Robert Pavelin was killed on Sunday after his 65cc Kawasaki bike ran off the track and his throat was gashed on a boundary rope.

Mr Nicholls, former British Auto-Cycle champion, said he would discuss with the Auto-Cycle Union, the body which governs the sport, and council environmental health officers whether changes should be made to the barriers around the track.

He said: "All that anyone wants is to prevent another accident of this kind, but we don't want a knee-jerk reaction.

"The ropes are standard ACU barriers and they are there to protect the spectators.

"If we introduced another kind of barrier, we could be preventing one sort of accident and causing another."

The Reading Trail Park has been criticised by a mother from Fareham in Hampshire whose seven-year-old son was using the track at the time of the accident.

The woman, who asked not to be named, aid: "There was no first aid help from the staff at the track.

"My husband spoke on the mobile phone to the paramedics while they were on their way and relayed first aid instructions to the boy's father."

She added that the track had not been closed after the accident.

But Mr Nicholls responded: "We knew nothing about the accident until someone came to the office to ask us to open the gates to let the ambulance in.

"I was in my office and I can see almost all of the track from there.

"In fact practically the only part of the track that I can't see is the place where the accident happened.

"I am a first-aider and so are my staff, but there was nothing we could do. The paramedics were arriving as we were informed.

"We didn't open the track again after the accident.

"Some riders did start riding round. I can't understand why anyone would do that in those

circumstances because there was blood everywhere, but they did."

A spokeswoman for Reading Borough Council said: "We cannot discuss any findings until the full investigation is completed."